


Samhain

by Acnara



Series: Garden Of Shadows [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, New World Order and all that, Pre-Slash, harry is 10 pls, is anyone surprised at this point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:03:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acnara/pseuds/Acnara
Summary: Every year, in Samhain, they come. They harvest kids, is what his teachers would say to the class. They come back to pick up their monsters, is what Aunt Petunia would spit whenever he asked.And when Samhain comes, 10 year old Harry is taken.





	Samhain

_Come, little children_  
I'll take thee away  
Into a land  
Of enchantment

 

"Backs Straight! Hold your positions!”

The line of young kids straightened up, little whispers filling the room. The dark tunics the children had been given before being apparated to the manor crisped as they shifted. Harry felt the blond boy on his left tugging at the end of his sleeve and the girl on his right muttering under her breath. 

“Magic is might. Magic  _ is  _ might. Magic is  _ might _ . Magic-”

Harry shuddered. For the good of them all, he hoped magic _was_ might. He looked around, his body trembling under the thin robes and even thinner clothes. Pale faces and big, unerved eyes looked back at him. Every child knew what it meant to be taken on Samhain night. 

The Dark Lord was going to decide which mudbloods would be entering Hogwarts next year.

The boy next to him -Michael? Had he ever introduced himself? Harry couldn’t remember.- was biting his lip raw. To be fair, none of the children he had seen after being swifted from the dark alley where he had hid to escape from Dudley’s gang had spoken much. Everyone was quiet, unnaturaly so. They were all supposed to be dying with excitement, being taken meant they were magical. Mostly.  


Sometimes they were not magical enough. Dudley loved to tease Harry and his freakishness with tales of Samhain night. “ _ And when they come for you, cousin, and realize you are not magic enough for them, what will you do?”  _ Harry could see Dudley’s smile behind his eyelids. Amused, so very amused.  _ “When they decide to hunt you down at night? Not normal enough for decent people but not weird enough for them… what a freak.”  _

It was true. Harry curled his toes inside his raid shoes. Everyone in Little Whinging knew Harry Dursley was a problem of a child. Maybe his teachers had done a little private poll, betting if they would see him in school on Monday. Betting if Harry would be one of those kids that were taken to never be heard of again. Word in the streets was that those ones were hunted and killed like animals after their magnanimous ruler was done deciding which one were  _ might _ .

Harry's heart was beating so quickly he was sure the _others_ policeman closer to him would be able to hear it. Maybe the man wouldn't even wait for the Dark Lord. Maybe he would decide that Harry was going to be hunted down with just a look at his trembling knees.

Dark Lord. He almost couldn’t wrap his head around the idea of seen him. Uncle Vernon never spoke about the others. They didn't try to make themselves a secret whatsoever, but his uncle was fine with pretending they left normal people alone. _“We have our own prime minister, don't we?”_ was Vernon Dursley´s favorite way of ending any conversation that got dangerously close to _them_. Harry hadn't even known that magic was a thing until around a year ago, when a girl a year over him had disappeared in Halloween. Their teacher had been forced to explain, then. Samhain, she had called it. An honor, she had said, too. Miss Peterson had looked ill while she did so.

Aunt Petunia had known Harry would be taken. He was not sure of why, but the way she had looked at him this morning would forever be printed on him. She had never before looked at him with so much disgust. She had probably always known, and the tought alone left Harry a bitter taste at the back of his throat.  


“Do you think it will hurt?” 

“Uhm?”

Harry was brought back to the present, Petunia´s implacable eyes far away from him, by the blond boy. Was Michael his name? Really? Or did he just have a Michael face? 

“When he… you know… checks.” Michael licked his lips in between whispers “Do you think it will hurt?”

Harry wasn't sure why Michael would think he could possibly know that. Maybe he was just scared and wanted to appears less so by talking out loud. Dudley loved to do that. Uncle Vernon too. 

“Well, I have never been… checked.” he answered. Could he have chosen anything more lame to say? If he hadn't been terrified of being noticed by the policemen he would have banged his head on the floor.

Michael licked his lips again, shifting his weight from one feet to the other. He made a quick check over Harry's head and drew close to whisper in his ear.

“Those Aurors seem impatient. That one over there, with the grey hair, he looks like the one who my cousin said came to get her. He is okay.”

Harry's heartbeat grew quicker if that was even possible.

“Wait, you have a cousin… from the others?” 

He must have said so higher than what he intended to, for the boy next to Michael shoved them both to shut them up and the girl on Harry's side increased the speed of her mantra. She was spitting the words furiously now.

“Hey, the bunch of you! I don't want to hear a sound from there! Eyes ahead, this will be over in no time and we can all go home!”

Silence was made immediately. Harry was about to lean into Michael to ask him about his cousin (a witch! He had a witch in the family! How?) when a cold feeling run all the way up his spine. Like a tug, in his insides. The whole line of kids shivered and moved, and a loud noise -like a gun, like a shot fired to the sky- made them all jump in their place.  Out of thin air, three silhouettes dressed in black appeared. 

The Dark Lord -the one who ruled over the others,  _ the one who rules over all of us _ was impossible to miss. Even Harry, who had never seen a wizard before, knew which one it was.

The tallest one. The scariest one.

Harry would have tried to sneak a glance at the other two, the other wizards, but he couldn’t. The pale, snake-like figure was terrifying. And he felt it, then. That thing. That strange headache the strange man in the park had told him about. He pressed his fist around the small bird pin he had given Harry. 

“ _ A Phoenix, my boy”   _ the old man had told him before vanishing after a blink “ _ keep it with you tonight, will you?”  _

Harry knew he was not supposed to accept things from strangers, but the pin was really beautiful. Red and golden, smooth to the touch. Harry had pinned it inside his sleeve so Dudley wouldn’t see it, and therefore decided he wanted it, and kept it there all day. 

He had trusted the old man. He looked like the kind of person his aunt would despise, legs too long, beard too white, eyes too sprinkled with happiness. The fact that he had implied Harry would be taken on Samhain had felt somehow less dooming than his aunt's stare.

So, when the ache began, Harry tighten his hand around the small bird overed in flames pinned to his cloths so tight his hand surely would look bruised in the morning. 

If he ever made it to the morning, of course.

One of the policemen, one of the Aurors, stepped forward. Harry couldn't hear what he was saying but saw him hand the scaly man some papers, bowing so low Harry thought he might break in half. 

It's not like the tall wizard was paying attention to him. Since they had appeared, the Dark Lord only had eyes for the line of children. 

“You all must be… scared.” his voice was a low hiss that broke the silence as if he was carrying a microphone. Harry's eyes glued to the man's throat. Was that it? Was that magic? All fear and distress disappeared for a moment. For a few seconds, the world paused and Harry just stared in undeniable awe.  _ Magic. _

The whole line shuddered. The girl beside Harry cut his mantra as if she had been slapped. Michael lowered his eyes to the ground and Harry followed quickly when he saw the Dark Lord stepping forward.  He was going to walk along the line.

“You might have heard stories, about this day.” his steps resonated against the marble floors, very pretty floors now that Harry was looking at them. He wondered who lived in the manor. And if they were okay with a bunch of children suddenly taking over one of their rooms. “But you have nothing to fear… if you have nothing to hide.”

The hiss was low. Dangerous. The slight burn in his head disappeared with a wave of warmth from the bird pin. 

“Some of you might have known for years that you were special. That you were different. That you would get called here tonight. Some of you might have just found out. And some of you might have found a way to sneak your little lies inside my home.”

Harry's breath caught in his throat. There it was. So it was not a lie, there  _ was  _ a way of being magic enough to be called, but not enough to be considered magic. As the voice grew closer to him, he felt something ugly curling inside of him. His teachers always called him a liar. Maybe he was one of these liars the Dark Lord spoke about.

“But most of you… most of you, my little mudbloods don't even know what I am talking about. Let me show you.  _ Abracadabra _ .”

Suddenly, the walls of the mansion light up on fire.

Chaos endured. The line of kids broke up in terrified screams, the ones on the edges pushing towards the middle to get themselves away from the raging fire. Harry was pushed and pulled and heard crying somewhere on his left. He would be screaming too if he hadn't been too mesmerized by the fire itself. 

_ Magic.  _ It was magical fire. It had come from  _ nowhere. _

Right then, Harry decided he wanted to be one of the others. He desired it with such intensity his whole body trembled with anxiety. He couldn’t come back home to his room under the stairs, now. Not after this. The sheer wonder he felt made it difficult to breath. Michael crashed into him again and he was shoved against the girl with the dark hair and he couldn't care less.

A loud clap and the fire disappeared as suddenly as it had come. Harry was almost disappointed. 

“Now now, children.” The Dark Lord sounded cheerful, the small smile on his lips crashing with his snake-like, monstruos appearance “Don't get so excited, the night is still young.”

And without another word he raised one hand and Harry was shaken back into his position in line. He tried to scream this time, but couldn't. His lips felt glued shut.

There was no smile on the Dark Lord's face now. 

“I am a wizard.” The words were said carefully, delicately. “And you, are mudbloods. You will learn all about that in due time, worry not. You  _ will  _ learn. Magic is might. You will say it proudly once you walk out of here. With  _ our  _ mark.”

The Dark Lord was walking again. The line was not long, children from the others among common folk were a rarity, his teacher had told the class back in the day. Not many of them in the country. Maybe the handful of children in the room was enough to cover all Britain?

Harry didn't know. Wasn't sure he wanted to know, either. The Dark Lord was getting closer and closer, and the chill inside his bones was growing along with the ache on his forehead. Was his scar hurting?

The Dark Lord passed right in front of him. He smelled like smoke and ash. Harry kept his eyes low, not daring to look at him.

He wasn't wearing any shoes.

The wizard was right there. He wasn’t doing anything, really. He wasn't visibly checking anyone, just talking. Going on and on about _mudbloods_. Maybe the magic check was supposed to happen later. Maybe-

The pain in his scar was suddenly so overwhelming Harry´s lips almost brusted open in a scream. They trembled, barely opening, and Harry was sure he would ha howled had his lips not been magically restrained.   


And the Dark Lord cut his speech, barely two kids away from Harry's spot, and turned around to look at him.

“I see we have found a little liar tonight.”

The pin on his palm  _ burned. _

And the girl on his left cried out loud.

“ _ No!”  _ she covered her mouth with her hands as soon as the sound escaped her, as if she was trying to keep it in. She looked terrified.

The Dark Lord waved his hand dismissively, and Harry felt one of the Aurors tugging at him to get to the girl. He tried to protest -he also had wanted to scream, and if he had-

Harry stared at the girl. She could talk. His lips were firmly shut, but not hers. 

She struggled. She kept crying out that she  _ had  _ magic. _Magic is might,_ she screamed, tears falling down her face, _magic-_

Harry didn't hear any more before the girl and the man disappeared with a loud sound.

He was speechless. He was terrified. 

_ It should have been him. _

T he pain, the horrible pain, it had been all his. His own lips had opened a bit, right before the strange -magical?- pin had burned. Harry´s mouth went dry. Guilt and horror mixed in the base of his stomach staring at the empty space next to him. _It should have been him._

The snake wizard had not stopped his walk while the girl was removed from the room. Harry could hear his voice, distant in his ears, as if a wide sea was separating him from that wizard. From the man who made fire and tossed them around with a flick of his hand and hadn't even looked twice at a girl after considering her… whatever the others thought of normal people.

Looking at the empty spot on his left, Harry couldn't help but wonder if magic people felt the same Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia thought of the others. Which led him to think about what he would do when he got sent back home. To his family. To his little room. To their little town. They would all know. They will whisper about how harry had been taken, about how he _had_ magic. How he was a Changeling, a child of the other among them. He wondered if they would look into his eyes and see the crying eyes of the girl and know Harry had stolen her place.  


The Phoenix was warm in his hand.

“... I wish you all a happy Samhain," the Dark Lord continued, but Harry too absorted on his own toughts to listen to him anymore, "or, as the muggles call it,  _ Halloween.” _

 

__Come, little children  
The time's come to play  
Here in my garden  
Of shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Prologue-ish of a story maybe one day i will write, but i thought Halloween was the appropiate time to post something Samhain-themed. Happy halloween!


End file.
